Given The Opportunity: Should You Do TechStars or YC? | Hacker News Reader

Given The Opportunity: Should You Do TechStars or YC?

alexstechthoughts.com

55 pointsAtaub2422 comments

"That being said, I think the organizations aren’t directly competing for the same type of companies to be in their respective accelerator programs."

Actually all the US "incubators" are competing for roughly the same national (and to some extent international) applicant pool.

In particular it's not true that we specialize in earlier stage startups than the others.

The only thing that partitions the market is founders' unwillingness or inability (e.g. due to visas) to move. In some cases the former may be a good filter; we're not sure yet.

Hey, I'm a TS grad from NYC and friendly with both founders from YC and other Techstars classes. One quick misconception: Only 5 TS cities, none international, and the "affiliate techstars network cities" shouldn't be lumped in here. Both YC and TS are different formulas. Here are the two main things I liked about Techstars:

- the NYC program has a huge allure to anyone doing media or advertising focused startups. You're going to get that advantage from the mentors in the program and the speakers. We wouldn't have gotten where we were without all of the people in the media/ad industry hearing about us from TS. We're building for the longhaul in NYC and this helped us rocketboost our way into the media/ad landscape.

- TS is very hands on and my guess is that's why it's been kept to 12 or so companies per class. YC is hands on too, but my guess is it's in a much different way (either one works, choose your preference). I spent multiple hours a day with Brad Feld, David Cohen, and Dave Tisch leading up until Demo Day along with our $5mm round we closed < 30 days after.

Both are awesome programs and I think every entrepreneur should go through TS or YC if given the chance.

Location is important. I'm based in NYC, and while I'd love to do YC, the connections I'd make at TechStars NYC might be of more use to me when I'm planning to stay in the city permanently.

All hypothetical opinion of course, because I am in neither.

Many of the most successful companies are way beyond product dev stage. Airbnb had launched ~6 months before they started YC. There are many other companies that are launched and gaining traction before they join YC, tikl, colorlovers are a couple of others that come to mind.

The average age of YCers in my round was 26, and there were people that are below 21 and above 35 too. I think that has gone up as people now receive $150k extra and can reasonably survive even if they have other responsibilities.

If you have the ability to move to Silicon Valley and are accepted in to both programs I think YC is a no-brainer (though I have done it twice so am highly biased).

I think you are answering your own question, with which I personally agree with. One question popped up though: which are the yc companies that entered YC at relatively later stage and were they successful/ beneficial to them to be in yc?

YCs value is undoubtably incredible for very early stage companies. I wondering how that value stacks up to later stages

I assume this is not really a problem because YC are in some cases prepared to deviate from their typical equity ask.

I wasn't talking about the cost of YC.

As an early stage company you go from 0 to 10mil. If you are already a 1-2 mil, where do you go?

Are you saying that the top YC companies on demo day get funded at valuations of ~$10M? I can believe that but I wonder if there's any data... for instance I wonder what the top and average valuation of TechStars companies is at demo day.

If you've built something worth 1-2M you could go into YC and presumably end up with a 10-12M valuation at the end. Not the same growth percentage wise but the same in terms of dollar amount.

+1 for Boulder, CO

The assumption implicit in this article seems to be that the two programs are equally available to entrepreneurs. In considering the two programs for my startup, I don't think this is the case. I haven't been in either program, but I have been watching both for 5 years it seems.

YC seems to be far more selective, and while the classes are growing each year, they are not growing as fast as the number of applicants. YC also seems (rightly or wrongly) to be more focused on 18-23 year olds who are in or just out of college, who want to do a startup, and who can show the kinds of ... bonafides that a college student can show (Eg: more academic related.)

In contrast, Techstars is following a franchise model and growing the number of programs rapidly, and now in fact has a global accelerator network so expansive there's even versions in Dubai and Tel Aviv![1] TechStars seems more interested in traction, and founders who have startup experience.

Put another way, YC is very much like a harvard, while TechStars is like a state college network. There's only one YC but there's a TechStars in every major town.

This means TechStars is more accessible, even going so far as some of the smaller programs in the global network which (at least in one case I know of seem to be) not super choosy. This is quite a contrast to YC which is very selective and has a close knit network.

They are focused on different market segments in another way. TechStars knows you might pivot, and all investors say "its about the team" but TechStars seems more interested in startups that are in progress, while YC is even open to people who don't have an idea at all. In TechStars you should pivot if you have to, but in YC a part of the program is reworking what you're doing, and it seems to be more assumed.

Finally, I think it must be admitted that YC has probably a lot better potential for raising big money on demo day. Techstars ranges from close to YC capability for Boston and New York, to nowhere near as strong. (have any graduates of The Ark, a TechStars affiliate in Arkansas, raised more than $5M? $1M?)[4]

So, I think the two programs have two very different target markets, and very different levels of opportunity they provide.

To extend the college metaphor further, you should apply for YC if you're under 30[2], but you probably should also apply for TechStars as a backup, given the slim odds of getting into YC. So, this is like applying to Harvard but also another Ivy League school and your state college as a last ditch backup. YC would be Harvard, TechStars NY, etc would be the other Ivy League and TechStars global network would by your state college analog.

Frankly, there are also a lot of contests and other programs. In fact there are hundreds of programs. We're going to apply for probably a dozen different things happening this fall. From TechCrunch disrupt to TechStars and international affiliates.

One thing I've found is there's a shelf life for startups at the incubation stage. After you've been working on your startup for 6 months to a year you get to a point where what you really need is angel funding. So, for that first 6 months to a year, you probably should apply for a lot of the early stage opportunities.

[1]http://globalacceleratornetwork.com/ (at first I thought it was in Iran given the way the map looks on the page.)

[2] I know YC doesn't discriminate on age, but it really does seem like they are looking for people in their 20s. Their application asks for your HN ID for instance. This is a good thing. Without YC there wouldn't be this kind of program for recent grads who want to do a startup. When you're an investor you have to be choosy about your sector. Some insurance company might be a great investment, but if you don't know how to evaluate insurance companies, then you would still pass. YC seems well tuned to evaluating younger entrepreneurs.

[3] We're in Startup Chile.

[4] I don't know and it is not a reflection on the goodness or the badness of The Ark as a program if they haven't had that kind of success. It is more an example of the different segments of the startup market that they are addressing.

According to pg, the average age of YC founders is 27.

I'm not meaning to imply that YC is discriminatory. If you look at YC as if it were a product, you could say its adoption is highest among people below 30.

I did look this up before submitting my comment. If you figure that there aren't many 15 year olds getting into YC and the distribution is flat, then that means there aren't many 35 year olds getting in either. I think the distribution is probably not flat, and probably peaks somewhere in 20-27 years of age, and that there are probably 40+ year olds who have been admitted and that there are also larger macro dynamics (e.g.: the age at which people get out of college is centered around low 20s) at work here.

From: http://www.ycombinator.com/faq.html What's the average age of people you fund?

About 26. A lot of people think it's younger because the press especially like to write about young founders.

The press comment is relevant because a lot of people probably think the average age is 19-21. 26-27 are consistent with the point I was trying to make.

"YC seems to be far more selective"

"YC is very much like a harvard, while TechStars is like a state college network"

Interestingly (and of course unscientifically) a search for "prestigious techstars" returns about 2800 matches while a search for "prestigious ycombinator" returns only 98. It would be interesting to see what effect the more ubiquitous techstars has on a tipping point of notoriety because of the quantity of locations it is available at.

it really does seem like they are looking for people in their 20s. Their application asks for your HN ID for instance.

We use HN ids to keep track of applicants, not as a filter (it's all one codebase). There is a link on the application form that lets applicants create HN ids for any cofounders who don't have one.

As for the age of people we fund, I've never studied this systematically but it feels like the median age of people we accept is about the same as the median age of people who apply.

My memory was that (at least at one point) the application mentioned wanting to read someone's posts to see what kind of a thinker they are. (and also that it was ok if you didn't have one already.) This is probably a lot less practical these days than it was in the early days.

The above quoted line would more accurately represent what I was trying to say if I had written: "YC really seems more geared to people in their 20s."

I apologize for implying bias.

He did say that. I would be surprised to hear that they still do that.

We don't go read people's comments after they apply (that wouldn't scale well). It's more that if we see a username we recognize for saying smart things on HN, we're more likely to invite them to interviews.

Have you ever invited someone to apply based on their HN presence?

Would YC ever be willing to release anonymized data, or would you consider that information proprietary?

Neither, really. We don't consider the information valuable in any way, but trying to anonymize and release it would be about 1000th on our list of priorities, and we are pretty busy.

As a 20-year-old, I definitely feel much younger than a majority of my batch. It's my experience that the median is much higher.

I don't see what asking for your HN handle has to do with anything.

I know YC doesn't discriminate on age, but it really does seem like they are looking for people in their 20s. Their application asks for your HN ID for instance.

This is the second time I've come across the assumption that folk on HN are all in there 20s. Is there a breakdown by age somewhere I'm unaware of? Most people I know in person here are in their thirties or forties :-)

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